Hey, look at that, TWO posts in one day!! Let me put it this way: being just sick enough to stay at home and not quite too sick to be flat on your back (like yesterday) has its way of being impossible boring. And so since childish computer games can only hold their appeal for so long, I thought of this subject and thought I'd write a bit.
(Disclaimer: I have an Inner Poet. Thank you).
Paris and New York are particularly related to me -- two cities I have up and moved to for school, not knowing really anyone, the surrounding geography, or street names. It happens sometimes (surprisingly often in my life, actually). However, I'm not the only one. A lot of Parisians apparently love New York, and often go to live there. I did not know this, but you can speak only French and mostly get by in New York. Go figure. They say it's the most European city in the US -- I'm not exactly sure why, but I suppose it works.
The thing is, though, is that while they are linked psychologically, they are nothing alike. As far as their characters -- yes, they move a lot, yes they are big cities and thus have more in common than, say, Cheyenne Wyoming and Los Angeles might -- they are -- well. Nothing alike.
I knew that was the case from the beginning but could never quite put my finger on it, besides the obvious (HINT: it has to do with a thousand years or two of history, but I saw it the other day when Darcy and I went up the Tour Montparnasse and looked at Paris from way up high.
Here's something you need to know about New York: Seen from up high, especially at night, New York is impossibly beautiful. It makes sense from up there -- the grids, the lights, the sky scrapers jostling for a position in the skyline, the endless, twinkling lights lights lights, and you just can't hear the madness from up here. All the cars, or most of them, are yellow, and everything could be glamorous.
The truth is, bluntly, is that Paris just doesn't make sense from above. There is no rhyme or reason, and from above it just makes things confusing. The buildings, from the most part, look alike, and there is no street pattern -- they wind around each other in no particular order, spitting out onto the occasional grand boulevard. Here and there, the great monuments pop up, the space around them strangely and bizarrely empty, as though they have warning fences around them. Do Not Touch, it seems to say. Historically Important.
No, from above, the character of Paris is wiped out-- because it's here, on the streets, below the buildings. Only from here you can see the differences, the different types of balconies. Only from here can you see what's hiding under the eaves of the boutiques of the Rez-des-chaussées. The boulangeries, épiceries, patisseries, brasseries, cafés...you can't see it from above, but that's where Paris lives. On the streets, in the cafés. The conversations, the people, the cigarette butts scattered everywhere. The motorcycles taking never before seen traffic liberties.
Because the thing is, history is taken for granted here, even as people cling desperately to it. No monuments must be changed. If it's historical, it must be preserved. The boulangerie that you go to everyday has always been there and probably will be.
In many ways, Paris has become, I think, a museum city, sometimes cold and unchanging like the somber austerity of the Pantheon, which for being the home of the great men, feels numb to me. The city is filled with museums of course but the city itself is a museum.
In contrast, New York is new. It breathes. It changes. Of course, it lives through its street vendors and taxi drivers and the bum you always see on the corner, but the thing about New York is that all of things build up to this bigger entity, almost, that has no real faces but everyone knows what it looks like. From above, it makes sense. Paris is only made up of what it is.
Of course I couldn't tell you which one I prefer. I think I've mentioned that I fell into living in Paris as easily as breathing, while in New York, I just loved it. Two different characters for two different cities, and if I could tell you which one or either may find me in the years to come, I would be a rich psychic.
Bisous à tous.
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